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Thread: [Deck] Imperial Painter

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    [Deck] Imperial Painter

    By now, most Legacy players probably know a bit about Imperial Painter. But the deck requires a set of Imperial Recruiters and doesn’t run Brainstorm, so why would you even consider building it?

    The reason to play iPainter is that its fundamental strategy attacks the Legacy meta in a powerful and unique way: while assembling combo pieces capable of either winning the game or generating instant-speed 1cc Vindicates/Counterspells, it directly hates all non-basic lands and the color blue, two relative constants in the format over time.

    Brief History with Links

    On May 2, 2008, Shadowmoor was released and Eternal magic received two new combos with the addition of Swans of Bryn Argoll and Painter’s Servant. Most of the initial hype involved Swans, but later that month, Okazawa Tatsu placed 5th at the 51-player Ancient Memory Convention 36 in Japan with “Mono-Red Painter”, and the Imperial Painter archetype was born.

    Tatsu discovered the obscure Imperial Recruiter’s power in this deck. Not only does Recruiter find Servant, but it also finds Magus of the Moon and fits perfectly with a Stompy mana curve. On top of that, red lends itself to abusing Servant with a bunch of Red Elemental Blasts/Pyroblasts in the main deck, conveniently hating Legacy’s dominant color as a natural side effect.

    Imperial Painter made several top-8’s in June 2008 including Michael “Hollywood” Keller placing second in a 49-person Hadley tournament around the same time he introduced the deck to the Source (first thread here).

    I Top 4’d Star City Dallas/Ft Worth in 2010 and placed 12th at the same event early the following year before Kim Grymer piloted iPainter to its biggest showing to date, finishing 7th in Grand Prix Amsterdam in October, 2011.

    Here are more notable iPainter performances since then:

    Nov 2011 - Jonathan Suarez places 7th at SCG Charlotte

    Jan 2012 – Jeremy Liger places 5th out of 240 at Legacy Cachan (with Punishing Fires!)

    Feb 2012 – Lasse V Hansen places 7th out of 234 in Madrid

    Not Top 8’s, but a couple of Texas guys Top 16 SCG in March 2012 – Michael Dye gets 11th (abusing Welder) and Bill Yowell gets 14th at SCG Dallas/Ft Worth:

    Jan 2013 - I finished 7th at SCG Dallas/Ft Worth even though I played like shit several times.

    Deck Construction and Basic Strategy

    What is iPainter’s core strategy? Abuse Moon effects and Painter’s Servant interactions with Grindstone and blue-hating red cards using a Stompy manabase.

    This is iPainter’s skeleton (cards common to nearly all decklists):

    6-8 Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors
    4-8 Simian Spirit Guide, Chrome Mox, and/or Lotus Petal
    4-7 Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon
    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter’s Servant
    5+ Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast
    4 Grindstone*

    *Except for Tatsu’s list. It’s funny, but the first iPainter ran 3 Grindstones. I don’t know if it was intentional or if Tatsu only had 3 when he threw the deck together. The other exception here would be in the case of splashing white for E Tutor or blue for Trinket Mage.

    iPainter generally tries to:
    • assemble the combo win as soon as possible and preferably go off with an advantage (with Blast backup, in response to removal, etc.);
    • combine Servant with Blasts to answer most types of threats while gaining board advantage or finding Grindstone;
    • play a Moon effect and then follow up (many times Recruit an appropriate creature);
    • lock the opponent out with Moon effects.

    The core decklist wins either with the Grindstone combo or with dork-beatdown.

    Imperial Recruiter’s ability is the engine that allows the red Stompy manabase to complement the Servant plan so well, and it also makes iPainter one of the more resilient/consistent Stompy decks. Recruiter is card-advantage at its best.

    The Recruiter Engine finds critical pieces while laying down a chump blocker/attacker. Another more subtle option with the Recruiter Engine is the ability to “chain” Recruiters and out-draw your opponent. If your opponent is in topdeck mode and/or other conditions are right, you can consider playing the long game by Recruiting Recruiters for a few turns. This works especially well if you play Sensei’s Tops.

    Aside from the core cards, iPainter decklists have varied in several ways. Here are some historically used strategies and cards:

    Add Burn

    Abuse Servant and Blue-Hate More

    Abuse Stompy Manabase and Moon more
    • More Moon or Magus
    • A full 8 Sol Lands
    • 6-8 SSG + Mox/Petal
    • Phyrexian Revoker* - should be considered a good Stompy component
    • Others like Trinisphere (Hollywood succeeded with it MD in an early list)

    Add Deck Manipulation for Consistency

    Add Aggro Mode

    Toolbox for Recruiter

    Add Equipment

    Abuse Welder

    Add More/Resilient Win Conditions

    Punishing Fires

    Splash Colors

    Sideboard construction - Depends on MD, so SB strategy should probably be discussed for specific builds. Inherent bad matchups for iPainter include:
    • Any Eldrazi deck
    • Zoo
    • Maverick
    • Jund
    • Aggro Loam
    • Burn
    • Charbelcher and other fast combo not vulnerable to Moon effects

    Other than cards in the maindeck options listed above, here are some common sideboard selections:

    The above is just a start, and I’m sure there should be more cards listed. Even without splashing a color, the variety of cards available for iPainter is good and there are multiple ways to build the deck competitively.

    From the last iPainter thread, Seth (sroncor) posted most about color splashes and I remember the black splash with SB Perish being really appealing when Zoo was dominating the meta. After throwing Mental Misstep into my mono-red list when they were legal, I finally added blue because it fit so naturally at the time, and included a single Trinket Mage. That was the only time I splashed and it was actually one of the better performing builds I’ve played. After MM was banned though, I felt like even the single Trinket mage was a dead card during play just enough that it wasn’t worth the splash.

    Splashing a color in iPainter requires significant justification because of the obvious conflict with a Stompy+Moon plan and more importantly, because it increases your vulnerability to Wasteland and Stifle. Another inherent strength of the deck is its relatively solid manabase, and splashing needs to be worth sacrificing stability.

    One card that is common to most lists historically but has been dropped by some recently is Jaya Ballard. Jaya was definitely made for this deck, working well with both Recruiter and Servant. However, she is slow (most of the time), fragile, and creates card disadvantage. On the other hand, she can solve a wide variety of problems. Jaya provides all-purpose burn which is decent removal on its own and offers a win condition with reach. The non-spell-based Vindicate effect kills Emrakul with Servant in play and destroying lands can turn Moon (and SB cards like Thorn of Amethyst and Trinisphere) into a hard lock. Even without Servant, Jaya will take out Jace and Counterbalance. Also, don’t underestimate her mass burn ability, which can finish a game if the life totals allow it.

    Most iPainter lists have added burn, at least a few cards for consistency, and at least a few Recruiter toolbox options to the core decklist. Burn interacts with creatures, planeswalkers and supports the beatdown win. Although it was not the case in early lists, most iPainter builds now include at least a few Tops, Lootings, or Jets to avoid stalling out. The most popular Recruitable cards in the MD aside from Servant and Magus are probably Jaya, Welder, Revoker, Metamorph and the aggro option (Dragonlord or Figure). Spellskite might be in there too.

    Some of the variation in iPainter lists/strategies seems to fall along these dimensions:
    • All-in Early Game vs. Sustainability – more first turn moons, early Painter-activated Blasts, fast bombs/locks OR more deck manipluation, all-purpose removal, recursion, protection, etc?
    • All-in on Core Plan vs. Variety/Options – maximize support for Moon locks, Servant-activated plays OR add aggro options for Recruiter, play more Welder with Welder-targets, maximize burn, etc?

    The End

    I’ll close this up with a mention of Imperial Recruiter’s scarcity. Up to this point, the lack of Recruiters in circulation has created another advantage for Imperial Painter: most players don’t prepare for it. Unless the availability of this mission-critical card increases significantly, iPainter will probably never make it into the DTB category and will continue to be a surprise matchup most of the time, especially at larger events.

    Although the short supply of Recruiters will surely limit the number of iPainters out there, hopefully a few deck builders and players will be able to keep innovating with the deck.

    Thanks to:

    Kap’n Cook for sharing the primer he started writing and adding his own strategy explanation to the iPainter 2.0 discussion.

    Okazama Tatsu for creating the deck and making me consider buying Recruiters instead of Tarmogoyfs.

    Hollywood for starting the first thread which convinced me to buy my Recruiters (better investment that Goyfs would have been).

    Kim Grymer for proving that this deck can place at an event of any size.
    Last edited by DrewliusMaximus; 04-13-2013 at 11:15 PM. Reason: more cards added

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